It was the usual act that we’ve seen and heard at Rotaries and in other venues across the state, only now it’s going national.
It’s all a bit hard to take, hearing stuff like this: “There’s something sacred about the family unit; I have four boys.” This from the guy who ditched his family, his security detail, his job and the people of South Carolina to spend Father’s Day weekend with his mistress in Argentina. Yes, that’s within the context of expressing regret. But manohman, am I sick of him taking his rather bland and superficial regret public.
Why can’t he shut up about it already? The simple explanation is unavoidable: Mark Sanford is not done inflicting himself on us. He sees this as a stage on his way back. Could I — and all the others who are saying it — be wrong about that? Could it just be his usual narcissism, with no actual political end in sight? I’d love to think so…
(By the way, I would apologize for the fact that both this video and the YouTube version seem to cut off in the middle. But I think you should regard that as a merciful blessing.)
In case you missed it, Mark Sanford is making his second appearance on the comeback trail — not to be confused with that other trail — tonight at 9 p.m. by appearing on CNN live with Piers Morgan:
LIVE: Former Governor Mark Sanford
In an in-depth interview, the former Governor of South Carolina opens up about the scandal that caused him to leave office & more.
And what’s all this about? Well, we’d all heard in the past about the possibility that he’d run against Lindsey Graham. But today I heard on the street — or reasonably close to the street — another scary possibility: He wants to be governor again.
Imagine the psychodrama. After the apology tour that seemed like it would never end, but finally did, he’s going to make us prove to him that we really DO forgive him by re-electing him. And the really, really scary part is that we’re highly likely to do that if he demands it of us. Because, let’s face it: We’re pretty messed up, too. We, the South Carolina electorate, have issues.
Anyway, now that he’s on this trail, I for the first time feel truly glad that I gave up cable. I don’t get those channels anymore! I can’t even record it! No one can expect me to watch it! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaahhhhh!…
Nor was the debut performance of Benjamin-Runyan Marionette Theater hailed in the city’s liberal enclaves. Prominent wine and cheese activist Kathryn Fenner made clear she wanted none of it. Kidding aside about the political climate of the Shandon-University Hill area, Fenner is a woman who is both well informed and highly involved in city matters.
Posting on bradwarthen.com on July 21, Fenner revived concerns about Runyan’s 2008 campaign against Rickenmann, saying she felt Runyan had unfairly criticized both Rickenmann and City Manager Steve Gantt during that race…
Only comment from Kathryn so far is that she finds this categorization “inexplicable.” In my experience, you have to watch it with such comments about liberals. As accurate as it may be.
I once referred in a column to liberals as people you might encounter at a wine and cheese reception at a local art gallery (I forget the exact words) and the resident liberal on the editorial board (long gone now) got offended by it. Which surprised me.
But she was so sensitive. You know how those people are.
But the contrast that may lift Perry, and undermine Bachmann, in their high-stakes battle for Iowa had less to do with what they said than how they said it — and what they did before and after speaking.
Perry arrived early, as did former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The Texas governor let a media throng grow and dissolve before working his way across the room to sit at table after table, shake hand after hand, pose for photographs and listen politely to a windy Abraham Lincoln impersonator, paying respect to a state that expects candidates, no matter their fame, to be accessible.
But Bachmann campaigned like a celebrity. And the event highlighted the brittle, presidential-style cocoon that has become her campaign’s signature: a routine of late entries, unexplained absences, quick exits, sharp-elbowed handlers with matching lapel pins, and pre-selected questioners.
She camped out in her bus, parked on the street in front of a nearby Ramada Hotel, until it was time to take the stage. Even after a local official’s introduction, Bachmann was nowhere to be found. It was not until a second staffer assured her that the lighting had been changed and a second introduction piped over the loudspeakers that she entered the former dance hall here. By the time she made her big entrance to bright lights and blaring music, the crowd seemed puzzled….
What the writer is trying to describe there is something I’ve seen over and over in campaigns over the years. Sometimes a certain rhythm, a certain tone, a certain something that is hard to put in words develops that tells you one candidate is a winner while the other is descending into loserdom, even if she was the flavor of the week the week before.
Perry is the genuine phenom. He’s got the patter. He could be a carnival barker or a televangelist. He’s the Christian Right candidate from central casting, and the only actual governor running with Mark Sanford-type credentials on the Tea Party uber-libertarian shtick. Take a look at this picture. I ask you. He’s everything Andy Griffith was in “A Face in the Crowd,” only without the folksiness and the self-destructive tendencies.
By comparison, Bachmann is a walking wreck waiting to happen. She’s got jack to show in the area of accomplishments, and she’s got that crazy look in the eyes. The one Newsweek committed the unpardonable sin of capturing accurately. And now, people are starting to notice the way she let the celebrity she attained before Perry got in go to her head.
Up against the real thing — or someone who at least could play the real thing on TV (just as Dennis Haysbert was perfect as the Obama prototype, the First Technically Black President, on “24”) — Bachmann will melt like a typical freakish dusting of snow in Columbia.
I say that with the usual caveat — “as long as current patterns continue.” Things can change just as rapidly as they just did for Ms. Bachmann. But until something comes along that takes Perry out, there seems to be little Ms. Bachmann can do to improve her own fortunes.
CHARLESTON — As Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was still talking to the 2011 RedState Gathering at the Francis Marion Hotel today, I sent out this Tweet from the sweaty, charged-up ballroom:
I’ll go out on a limb here, even as he announces, and say Rick Perry WILL be the Republican nominee. But he won’t be president…
And an hour later, somewhat cooled off, I stand by it. Sure, I could be wrong, but if I can’t get at least one overbold statement out of driving down here and stumping around in this steamroom of a town (the only room in the hotel where the A/C seemed to be working was another ballroom where they were having an event called “GOP Leaders Meeting.” After all the leaders were let in, they allowed anyone else who wanted to come in, except for one demographic group: the press.)
So basically, y’all can quit worrying about all this, and pay attention to more fun stuff. I told Tim Smith of The Greenville News (the cowboy hat guy) about my realizations right after the speech, and I could tell he was relieved just knowing what was going to happen. Strangely, he did not close his notebook and head home to enjoy his weekend. He started interviewing RedStaters as though it mattered, as though it weren’t all over. I guess he figured, as long as he had come this far…
Then again, maybe he was hedging his bets, because I could be wrong (I hope that doesn’t shock you). Perhaps I should amend my statement, and say Rick Perry will be the GOP nominee IF every day of the campaign is like today. Yeah, that’s the ticket…
I guess it was fitting that it was so sweaty in that hotel, given all the bottled-up passion. And it was, literally — every SC GOP politician I ran into and shook hands with had sweaty palms. They, unlike the RedState conventioneers, were in full uniform: dark suit, red tie, white shirt. I, who would normally dress that way, did not today. I wore an open-necked shirt, my ragged-cuffed brown chinos, and my cheap sandals from Walmart. And inspired by Trey Gowdy, I did not shave today. Of course, this was Saturday, and I wasn’t speaking to the state’s largest Rotary, but still… he was my role model.
Anyway, back to Rick Perry, even though, as I said, there’s no point talking about it because it’s all over. Why do I think he’s going to be the nominee? Well, here are some of the reasons:
The way he pulled off this free-media coup. Remember the front-page advance story in The State yesterday? Well, there was also a front-page story in the WSJ today, in advance, about this thing that hadn’t happened yet, and written as though this speech in South Carolina was to be the 9/11 of political events, the event That Changes Everything. Based on the play of similar stories last night on the websites of the WashPost and the NYT, I’m guessing those, too, were on their respective fronts (those of you who have seen dead-tree versions of those today can confirm or deny).
He did this in the face of THE biggest event of the GOP nomination contest thus far. You may not have noticed (none of the media here was noticing), but the Iowa Straw Poll was held today. Perry was not on the ballot. And it seemed clear by the way media were treating this event that that didn’t matter a bit. THIS was the event. Forget those other guys and gal. As the WSJ put it today:
Everything about the Perry launch is designed to poke a finger in the eyes of the other candidates. His Saturday speech comes on the same day as a closely watched GOP straw poll in Ames, Iowa, the campaign’s most notable set-piece so far. His name won’t be on that ballot, and his speech seems designed to steal thunder from the event.
His entry is already stirring widespread excitement in elite GOP circles. Many predict he could pick up the backing of an array of top GOP governors, including the influential Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a major fund-raiser in his own right.
And Mr. Perry may already be benefiting from a lack of enthusiasm for other candidates, as polls show that none has garnered support from even a quarter of the GOP electorate. Mr. Romney’s Massachusetts health-care law, Rep. Michele Bachman’s relative inexperience and Tim Pawlenty’s inability to catch fire appear to have left the door open for a new candidate…
How successful was this stunt in pulling free media? Well, you can see the media mob scene. You might say, well, you’ve seen ’em that big before. So have I, but not that often, outside of a national convention. And I asked conference publicist Soren Dayton, just before Perry spoke, for his perspective on it. He said that at last year’s RedState conference, in Austin (with Gov. Perry in attendance), he had “zero” media to deal with. Today, he had 120 of the unruly creatures.
But the press can show up and do all the front-page stories about the Perry juggernaut (before it even starts rolling) all they want. That doesn’t nominate presidential candidates, does it? Well, the thing is, Perry showed up and met expectations — not only of the ink-stained wretches, but of the salt-of-the-earth (just ask ’em; they’ll tell ya) folk who show up at a conference like this one. And they had turned out en masse as well. Dayton estimated the crowd in that room about about 750, and there was a spillover room. I found myself wondering whether it was any cooler there…
It was not cool where we were, I can assure you. Aside from the humidity, Perry was on and hot and the crowd was hot, too (over that Obama, of course). And Perry, bringing all the talents of a bareknuckle Texas politico and a wannabe televangelist, threw them all the certified USDA RedMeat this RedState crowd could inhale. And they feasted on it. Watch the video. It doesn’t capture the sound fully, or the atmosphere (especially the humidity), but you’ll get an idea about how easily he spotted all their political erogenous zones and stroked them mercilessly.
He used every cliche in the book, and the tone of the response clearly said that this folks had never heard anything like it! They had waited their whole lives to hear a candidate — to hear anyone! — say these things! Such insights! He was their hero. Afterwards, I didn’t interview anyone for their reactions, because I had heard their true, spontaneous, visceral response. It wasn’t the most intense crowd response I’ve ever heard — I’ve visited black churches. It was more like the feel of the Sarah Palin-Nikki Haley rally last year, turned up several notches. (And of course, many of the same things were said — only in a more masculine manner.) I only recorded two reactions from individuals. As I was leaving the room, a woman behind me said, “I got chills!” A moment later, a man said, “He’s very direct.” Who could argue?
With this crowd (and this crowd was a great litmus test for the nomination — but not for election), he came across more clearly than any other Republican running this cycle as the AntiObama. And that’s the key, right? Because we all know where the emotional center of this passion lies.
At one point during the speech, I posted back-to-back Tweets that may have seemed to contradict each other. First, I wrote, “It astounds me that a crowd like this so wildly applauds assertions that are… obvious… things everyone knows, that OBAMA believes…” Then, I said, “Perry definitely positioning himself, more clearly than anyone, as the hyper-aggressive anti-Obama.”
What I meant was that whether he was saying things that everyone knows and believes, painfully obvious things (such as pointing out that every tax dollar had to be earned first by the sweat of an American taxpayer, which this crowd greeted like it was the most fresh, original and profound thing they had ever heard), or mischaracterizing what that wicked Obama and his minions believe in order to define what he (and everyone in the crowd!) opposed so passionately, it was all about saying that he, Rick Perry, was the one who believed, with the greatest purity and passion, all the right and good things that true Americans believed, and the one guy with the know-how, strength and determination to undo all the foolish evil associated with “Washington, D.C.” in general and Barack Obama in particular.
Some examples that illustrate what I was trying to say in that run-on sentence just now (most or all are on the video above, and most or all were applause lines):
“Washington is not our caretaker.”
“In America, the people are not subjects of the government; the government is subject to the people.”
“It is up to us, to this present generation of Americans, to take a stand for freedom, to send a message to Washington that we’re takin’ our future back from the grips of these central planners who would control our healthcare, who would spend our treasure, who downgrade our future and micromanage our lives.”
“And we will repeal this president’s misguided, one-size-fits-all government healthcare plan immediately!”
“We’ll get America working again.” (This, they say, is to be his campaign theme.)
“And I’ll promise you this: I’ll work every day to try to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your life as I can.
“… basing our domestic agenda on importing those failed Western European social values…”
“We don’t need a president who apologizes for America. We need a president who protects and projects those values.”
“America is not broken; Washington, DC, is broken.”
Again, I could (theoretically) be wrong in my predictions. This guy hasn’t been tested in the bigs (although there’s no bigger farm team than Texas) beyond this one speech. We’ll see. But right now, I expect this is the guy the GOP will be nominating at their convention about this time next year.
A cornerstone of the global financial system was shaken Friday when officials at ratings firm Standard & Poor’s said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world.
S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn’t do enough to address the gloomy outlook for America’s finances. It downgraded long-term U.S. debt to AA+, a score that ranks below more than a dozen countries, including Liechtenstein, and on par with Belgium and New Zealand. S&P also put the new grade on “negative outlook,” meaning the U.S. has little chance of regaining the top rating in the near term…
S&P said the downgrade “reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” It also blamed the weakened “effectiveness, stability, and predictability” of U.S. policy making and political institutions at a time when challenges are mounting…
The WSJ report (and here are others from the NYT, NPR, BBC and the WashPost) goes on to say that it might not be too bad, since the other ratings agencies have kept the U.S. at the triple-A rating, then says…
But the move by S&P still could serve as a psychological haymaker for an American economic recovery that can’t find much traction, and could do more damage to investors’ increasing lack of faith in a political system that is struggling to reach consensus even on everyday policy matters. It could lead to the prompt debt downgrades of numerous companies and states, driving up their costs of borrowing. Policy makers are also anxious about any hidden icebergs the move could suddenly reveal.
Just what we needed, right?
As you see, the reason is that we failed to reach a comprehensive, rational, credible agreement on reducing U.S. debt. That was always the greater danger than the debt ceiling not being raised. And our elected representatives descended to the challenge of eroding the full faith and credit of the United States of America.
Of course, all involved in the government will vehemently defend their agreement against such condemnation as Standard & Poor’s. The Obama administration scoffed at S&P for making “a $2 trillion error” in its calculations. And indeed, well they might lash out, because all will share the blame.
But here’s the thing: Obama was willing to do a real deal. I’m not saying it would have fixed everything, but at least he was pushing the essential elements — both spending cuts and tax increases (or “reform” or “enhancements” or “revocation of cuts” or whatever you want to call it). That was and is essential to real deficit reduction for the simple fact that no one wants to go far enough in cuts.
Oh, four of the SC5 would go far enough. They have a nihilistic desire to cut, slash and burn; they are ideologues, and are not affected by pragmatic considerations. But Joe Wilson wouldn’t be with them; he wants to be re-elected. And if the cuts were deep enough to essentially eliminate the deficit without any revenue increases, they would be replaced in the next election by people who do give a damn about the essential functions of government (or what most voters regard as the essential functions of government, which in political terms amounts to the same thing). It would probably also split our two senators: DeMint cares little for the consequences of cutting, but Graham would balk at emasculating the U.S. military.
Gentlemen, if I may go so far as to call you “gentlemen,” you and those like you have brought us to this. I will watch, not without some trepidation, to see what you do next.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman’s (R) presidential campaign manager, Susie Wiles, is resigning and will be replaced by communications director Matt David, according to the campaign.
Huntsman is announcing the changes to his staff at a meeting this afternoon. Top adviser John Weaver confirmed the changes to The Fix.
“Susie has served the campaign well and was vital in getting it off the ground in such a short time-frame,” Weaver said in a statement provided by the campaign. “In just under three months, Governor Huntsman has returned from China, launched a campaign and created a strong infrastructure in the three early primary states. He’s built important relationships with donors, as well as political, policy and grassroots leaders that other candidates have been courting for half a decade.
High-level staff departures early in a presidential campaign are generally not seen as a good thing, but thus far, Wiles is the only known departure from Huntsman’s team. (Another staffer recently took a leavefor personal reasons.)
The campaign did not expound on the reason for Wiles’s departure. Weaver said the campaign is simply shifting gears…
The thing I’ve thought about is this: Who in the world would want to work on a political campaign?
OK, that’s not quite what I mean… I know lots of people who DO work on campaigns, and who do little else. So the answer to the “who” is easy. But I’ve always sort of wondered about them, and marveled at them.
They mystified me more back when I had a long-time steady job. I just could not imagine anyone deliberately taking a job with such little job security — back when I had been working for the same company for 24 years, with good pay and benefits, and intended to stay until retirement.
Now, I’ve had more experience with the ad hoc lifestyle, and it’s not as scary as I always figured it would be. I see how someone can get used to it. I still don’t see choosing it.
Even if you really, really believed in a candidate… even if that was the only candidate in the world you would work for, and you were willing to give up all the comforts of a steady job in order to help that person get elected… it still sort of befuddles me.
There are problems with the whole campaign-staff career, as I see it, both from the perspective of the staffer, and from the perspective of those of us who want a healthy republic:
Lousy job security, in the sense that the “firm” for which you work — the campaign — is an extremely volatile enterprise. It could become essential to the success of the enterprise (or perceived as essential, which amounts to the same thing) for you to be fired at any moment. And there will be little warning, if any. One day, you’re fine. Next day something erupts that makes in impossible for you to stay.
Even worse job security, in the sense that even if things go well and you don’t get fired, the job only lasts a few months. Yeah, you might get hired by the newly elected official if things go really well and he or she wins, but that’s dicey. That’s like counting on getting hired when your boss moves on to another company. Could happen. Might not. Just as likely, you’re going to be looking for another campaign to work on the day after Election Day.
Once or twice in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to work for a candidate you really, truly believe in (unless you’re pretty indiscriminate). And it won’t last long.
You will probably have to associate yourself, permanently, with one of the political parties. This wouldn’t be a drawback for a lot of people — obviously is not a drawback for the people who actual do this for a living — but it certainly would be for me (speaking as a guy who’s had occasion to think of it since leaving the newspaper biz). The kinds of people who do the hiring for campaigns may run across an independent who is really knowledgeable about issues and politics and messaging and the rest, and really believes in the candidate individually, but they are not likely to hire such a person because there’s a long line of loyal party people wanting the job.
Finally, the big drawback to society of all of the above… It’s bad enough that politicians have trouble leading normal lives. It would be great if they could have some people around them who DO live normal, workaday lives in the regular economy and therefore have a deep, personal, working understanding of regular voters and their concerns. But for the reasons I cited above, the fraternity of people likely to work on a campaign and be in the best position to advise the candidate tend to be rather insular. (By the way, the newspaper industry is the same way — ever since afternoon newspapers died, newspapermen and -women have tended to be people who all work weird hours and therefore mostly associate only with people like themselves. Which is not good, in terms of staying in close touch with the community.)
It would be great if some of you folks who do this for a living, or at least have taken time out from the rest of life to work for pay on a campaign, would weigh in and enlighten us on this. I know there are quite a few of you who read this blog.
I don’t go in for blasphemy, which means I don’t like it when politicians (usually conservatives) claim to be tighter with God than other people, or when critics (usually liberals) make fun of them for it. I especially, speaking from my own brand of conservatism, don’t like it when people presume to put words in God’s mouth.
But I must confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that I did find the point brought up by The Onion here at least worth discussing:
July 21, 2011 | ISSUE 47•29
AUSTIN, TX—Describing Texas Gov. Rick Perry as grossly unqualified for the position, God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, urged Perry not to run for president of the United States Wednesday. “I prayed last night and asked the Lord to support my candidacy, and He said no,” Perry told reporters outside the Texas Capitol, explaining that God had cited the governor’s rejection of federal stimulus funds to expand state jobless benefits, his irresponsible speculation about Texas seceding from the union, and his overall lack of concrete solutions to nation’s problems as reasons why He could not endorse a Perry presidential bid. “I believe God made some valid points about my lack of credentials, and He’s absolutely right. My extreme beliefs when it comes to social issues and states’ rights are not only disturbingly narrow-minded, but would also make me a horrible president.” When reached for comment, God said He would not be present at Perry’s much-talked-about Christian day of prayer on Aug. 6, calling the governor’s use of his public office to endorse a religion both “irresponsible” and a violation of the Constitution.
OK, it’s not as funny or creative as some Onion stuff. I’ll confess that, too. I think they sort of called this one in. They thought, “Somebody needs to make this point, and it might as well be us.” What keeps it from being brilliant is that the writer couldn’t resist making serious points, and even doing it in a sort of preachy manner.
But hey, I thought that referring you to it would be one way of bringing up the topic of Perry suggesting that he is on a mission from God. So we could discuss it.
Personally, I don’t think God wants to get involved in the Perry candidacy one way or the other. I am, of course, not positive about that. I could ask Him, in order to make sure, but I really don’t like to bother Him with stuff like that.
But her aside, running for and holding public office takes an awesome amount of physical vitality. I’ve always sort of marveled at it. And I’m not talking just about the pace of a president, with the astounding schedules they keep (which is why they age so much in office). It’s true right down to county council.
Yeah, you can see out-of-shape slackers in public office, especially in some of the less visible offices. But I don’t notice them as much as I do the people who just never seem to stop. Since I wouldn’t want to run for office without knowing I’d do it well, I’ve always found the idea of going to all those night meetings — governmental, neighborhood associations, etc. — sort of overwhelming. I like to work hard all day, but then I like to rest. The idea of having to put in an appearance at all those events can put you right off of political power.
You wouldn’t mistake Joe Wilson, for instance, for a triathlete — or consider him to be a legislative dynamo, either. But he is EVERYWHERE. And always filled with enthusiasm, just thrilled to be there. Ditto with lots of legislators, and others you don’t hear about as much.
Some of it is personality type; getting a charge from something that would fill others with boredom. But there’s something physical there as well.
This morning, I got a late start on my day because I turned on the TV at about 7:20 to check something I’d tried to record last night on a new DVR, and there was the House of Commons grilling David Cameron, live on CSPAN2, about the hacking scandal. A remarkable exhibition of energy. (Not up to Tony Blair standards, but pretty good.) It went on for hours after what I saw.
Actually, that’s one thing I think I could do, and not get tired during the event itself. I’ve always liked fielding multiple questions from a crowd on a topic with which I’m well familiar, even when the crowd is trying to trip me up. It causes the adrenaline to flow, and I can feel my brain getting into the zone. It’s actually pleasurable. I’m not crazy about conventional public speaking, but I love taking questions, to the point that it’s hard to shut me up on the answers.
But after that exhilarating experience, he has to sit in a debrief on the South Africa trip, or a meeting with a constituent group, or a state dinner, or all of the above, plus grinding stuff I can’t even imagine. That’s what I wouldn’t have the energy for.
You ever sit through a city council meeting that goes on and on for hours? I know some of you have. I certainly have, in spades. When I was young and full of energy, I had days when, on account of having a beat covering five counties, I would attend three or four such meetings in different towns, then stay up all night writing about them. It was an afternoon paper, so deadlines were in the morning. I’d get to work at 7 a.m. Monday morning, work through deadline, then start with the meetings and interviews, finishing them by 10 or 11 p.m. then write in my office all night, and file multiple stories Tuesday morning, finally slowing down around lunchtime on Tuesday. Then I’d go home for a nap and start again. Then I’d probably take off later in the week, say on Friday.
Spread that out a bit, with more regular sleep time, and make it 7 days a week, without any real vacations, and you have the schedule of a POTUS.
I’ve had about enough of outdoor political events.
First, this time of year, it’s too hot. Then, it’s also too noisy.
But those are not the things that make this bad video. The main thing is that I couldn’t edit it. I shot it on my iPhone, which shoots awesome, HD (I think) video.
Trouble is, I can’t edit it. I can call it up in the PC editing software, just as I do with videos from my Canon. But there’s no sound. I tried ignoring that, and cutting it anyway down to the bits that looked and sounded best in Windows Media Player (which plays the format just fine), but the format that it saves to also lacks sound. So, pretty useless.
I have iMovie on the Mac laptop at work, which I think is supposed to edit video, but can’t figure out how to get the files from the phone to that application. Probably something really simple for people who think Mac, but hard for me.
So I just uploaded the whole thing. I said I would use the video to sub for one of the photos back on the previous post, but why take down a perfectly good jpg for a bad video? Make what you will of this.
Cindi had a good column today on the subject of arbitrary caps and limits and pledges and the like. There are a number of good things to get out of it.
The first is the fact that Jon Huntsman is the only Republican presidential candidate who has refused to sign Jim DeMint’s Cut, Cap and Whatever pledge — which apparently irritates our junior senator no end.
Jim is all like, “I won’t support any candidate who does not support balancing the budget. … So for me, he’s out.”
Which ignores reality, of course. It doesn’t occur to Jim (or at least, he lets on that it doesn’t occur to him, on account of amassing personal political power now being the most important thing to him, judging by his actions) that a guy could be for a balanced budget amendment (which Huntsman is) and not want to kowtow to him by signing his pledge. For that matter, just to go way deeper into territory that Jim DeMint would find impossible to imagine, one can be for, very passionately for, a balanced budget — and yet not favor a constitutional amendment mandating it.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about the amendment thing. A balanced budget should be standing operating procedure, except in times of full-mobilization war and other serious emergencies. But that should be an annual decision by Congress, not a mechanism. Whether we’ve reached the point that we have to throw out that process is not yet entirely clear to me. Maybe we have. I’m just not sure.
That aside, though, there’s a bigger point here — a point even bigger than the national debt. It goes to the heart of representative democracy:
But there’s an important principle involved as well: Pledging to do or not do anything important is an abdication of elected officials’ duty to examine the issues before them and make their own decisions on behalf of their constituents. And it makes it impossible for officials to govern in a changing world. Imagine the pledges some politicians might have signed before 9/11 — and how that could have prevented them from taking necessary actions to protect our nation after the attacks “changed everything.”
Yes! Yes! YESSSS!!! (Waiter, I’ll have what he’s having…) Continuing…
When you sign away your right to consider all your options, when you are bound by uninformed opinions, when you take directions from people whose primary purpose is to maintain power and defeat those who don’t think exactly as they do, rather than taking advantage of different points of view to come up with the best solutions, then you can’t even imagine the complex solutions to our state’s interwoven ills, much less enact them.
Sounds like Cindi was listening all those years, huh? Not that she couldn’t have come up with all those thoughts on her own. Come to think of it, maybe it was me listening to her…
Remember how I said yesterday that anyone else, besides Cameron Runyan, who wanted to run for the city council seat being vacated by Daniel Rickenmann should probably get started?
It’s looking later than ever today, now that Mayor Steve Benjamin has stood out in the heat in front of City Hall (already sweltering at 10 a.m.) to endorse Mr. Runyan.
Not much to add to that. Steve said the usual things about how he looked forward to having Cameron help him with the things he’s trying to accomplish for Columbia, and Cameron giving back complementary compliments.
One point that stood out that he didn’t make yesterday: He said today that when he ran four years ago, it’s because he didn’t like the direction in which the city was going. Today, he says he’s running because he’s optimistic, and wants to be part of positive change.
That’s about it. There’s video, but it hasn’t processed yet, so I’ll put it up in place of the above photo after lunch.
Did I mention it was hot? Cameron called it “Famously Hot,” which is cool from an ADCO perspective…
It all starts with a good breakfast. Cameron Runyan keeps to a strict diet, which he told me about while I was eating my grits and corned beef hash (with ketchup). Then, when he started going on about his exercise regimen, I almost walked out in protest.
If anybody else is going to run against Cameron Runyan for the at-large Columbia City Council position being vacated by Daniel Rickenmann, he or she will have to get started soon. Because Cameron is already running hard, with the election not until April 2012.
To hear him talk about it, you’d think it was tomorrow. But he took a bit of time out of this busy week of fund-raising to chat with me this morning.
Before I get to that, here’s the first release he sent out about his campaign, just as a beginning point of reference:
RUNYAN TO RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia businessman Cameron Runyan on Thursday announced that he will run for Columbia City Council in the April 2012 municipal election.
“After a great deal of thought and prayer, and after discussing it with my wife Jenni and my family, I have decided to offer myself as a candidate for City Council,” Runyan said. “I believe my experience as a private business person and as an engaged member of the community makes me uniquely qualified to serve all of Columbia.”
Runyan, 34, will seek the at-large Council seat currently held by two-term Councilman Daniel Rickenmann, who will not run for re-election.
Runyan enters the race with a fresh perspective on the challenges facing the city.
“I want to help build a clean, safe, strong city that my daughter is proud to call home for her entire life,” Runyan said. “We can make Columbia great, and I feel that I can play an important role in doing that as a member of council.”
Runyan’s platform will center on public safety, job creation and leadership.
“There is so much potential for our city, but there’s a lot of work to be done,” said Runyan. “We’ve got to crack down on crime, grow our city’s economy, and get our unemployed residents back to work.”
Added Runyan, “We also face environmental concerns, education concerns, and transportation concerns. It will take strong leadership to address these and other important issues. It will take strong leadership to move our city forward. I am ready to lead.”
Runyan plans to hold an official campaign kick-off in the coming weeks.
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You’ll recall that Cameron ran for this seat several years back. Or you may not. The way I remember it, all the available oxygen in that election got sucked up by the District 3 race between Belinda Gergel and Brian Boyer. That one was a corker. A lot of money was spent, and heat generated. Which was weird, because it was just a district election.
Cameron doesn’t quite remember it that way. He thinks he got enough attention, he just didn’t have the resources. He remembers doing well in District 3, which he hopes to do again, while doing better than he did in District 4. He says “I got my clock cleaned” in 1 & 2. He’s determined not to let that happen again.
You know what? Rather than take the time to try to weave this into an elegant narrative, with all the necessary transitions, I’m going to throw some bullets at you — in the interest of getting this post done:
Cameron thinks one disadvantage he had in 2008 was that he was so young (and inexperienced), at 30, compared to Daniel. That made me smile. I had this habit, back at The State, of asking a certain question of candidates I thought seemed barely old enough to vote, much less presuming to run for office and run things: “How old are you?” I asked it of young Mr. Rickenmann when he first ran. But we endorsed him anyway. Over my grumblings. It was one of those occasions when I let the rest of the board override me. I tended to remember things like that so I could hold it over my colleagues’ heads when they claimed that I always had my way. “Oh, yeah?” I’d ask. “How about when you made me endorse that Rickenmann kid?” But I digress.
Daniel also had the advantage of incumbency, which will not be a factor this time, conveniently for Cameron.
If you do the math, you realize that Cameron is now 34. Yep, the age of one of my kids. But he seems older because I’m used to seeing him around now — he’s at the Cap City Club most mornings, which was where we spoke today. He’s also somewhat calmer. After his endorsement interview last time around, I did something I seldom do — give the candidate feedback on the interview. I told him he seemed unusually… intense… in his criticism of his opponent. I mentioned that because I had a concern: Could he get along with other people on the council if elected, or would he always be at war with somebody. He assured me then that he would be cool. And he does seem a good bit cooler now.
When I first met him, Cameron was in the nonprofit world. He was working on the private side of the guardian ad litem program. Now he’s a financial planner. Interesting contrast there.
Economic development will be a key message in his campaign. I asked what he meant by that. He mentioned having a “structured incentive plan,” getting the council and mayor more involved in ecodevo, and taking better care of the businesses we already have. On that last point — he said the city needs to get more business-friendly in its permitting processes.
He grew up in Hampton County, where his father was an attorney. His Dad, incidentally, was raised in Nigeria. His father was a Baptist missionary.
He’s being helped in this campaign by Heyward Bannister, Adam Fogle (who, as you know, may be the funniest South Carolinian on Twitter) and the Quinns.
Most morning, you can see him sitting at his table at Cap City, reading his iPad. Which was how I found him this morning (see below).
He has disgustingly healthy habits. While I consumed my grits and corned beef hash, with ketchup, he broke his fast with fruit and oatmeal. He only eats meat once or twice a week. He engages in some sort of intense morning workout that was painful to hear about.
He says that government on the local level exists for only one reason: because “collectively, we can get more done than we can individually.” I think that sounded more collectivist than he intended. Later, he said he thought it was important to “balance collective responsibility and individual responsibility.” That sounded sufficiently communitarian (official battle cry: “Rights and Responsibilities“) that I asked it he had studied that school of thought. Like most people, he had not heard of it. Amitai Etzioni needs to get a better press agent.
On that last bit: I had lunch with Ashley Landess, head of the S.C. Policy Council, the other day, and mentioned communitarianism to her as well. You will not be shocked to hear that she had not heard of it either (neither, by the way, has the spellchecker on WordPress). But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell her about it. Yeah, I know — I am indeed the eternal optimist.
I thought this was a fairly cool image, even though you can see me in the reflection. Or maybe BECAUSE you can see me in the reflection.
Last evening I tried to post on Twitter, and for some reason (probably the fitful Internet connection at my house, which is why I’m about to change providers), it did not transmit. I found it in drafts this morning:
As you can see from the links (which illustrate an advantage of this medium over Twitter), all of those petty political potshots were fired on Monday.
One of them is out of place. Yes, for some reason, Dick Harpootlian is not content to sit back while Republicans tear each other apart. He is joining in, and attacking one of them in particular.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked Dick why Huntsman? Is it because that’s the Republican he fears the most? The one who might be a threat to Obama in the general election, if he can get past the extremists in his own party? Does he feel a particular responsibility as the Democratic chair in the first-in-the-South primary state to stop him here?
Dick said no. But his actions say otherwise.
Yesterday, I received three separate emails from Dick about Huntsman — the first two telling me, then reminding me, that Dick would have a conference call about Huntsman at 2:30. I missed the call, because I was tied up after the Haley appearance at Rotary. But no fear. Dick summarized his message in this release:
Harpootlian calls Jon Huntsman disloyal and disingenuous.
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootilan held a conference call today to welcome Jon Huntsman back to South Carolina.
During the opening of the call, Harpootlian discussed Huntsman’s support for Rep. Paul Ryan’s radical revision to Medicare. In response to Huntsman’s comment on his support, “[If Ryan’s plan is radical] then guilty as charged”, Harpootlian replied:
“He supports a plan that would double the out-of-pocket Medicare expenses to those who are younger than 55, but yet, the taxpayers are paying for the subsides of his private jet, every time he turns it on.”
Finally, when asked if he thought Huntsman was President Obama’s biggest threat on the Republican ticket, Harpootlian responded:
“Here’s a guy who had his lips firmly planted on the president’s butt three months ago, and now is speaking ill out of ’em out of those same lips. Can you trust a guy who turns this quickly? He is somebody who apparently will say whatever it takes to get elected. Huntsman, not only is he disingenuous, he’s disloyal.”
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Of course, that “lips firmly planted on the president’s butt” phrase is classic Dick, but it’s interesting to note that if he can get Republican primary voters to hear it, it will resonate with their Obama Derangement tendencies.
Between the last time Dick went after Huntsman and this time, I don’t recall him going after any other particular Republican candidate so specifically (it’s possible that he did in passing and I missed it in the flow of my IN box, but I know he didn’t go to this much trouble to attack them). It will be interesting to see whether he does so subsequently.
I’ve never been a fan of Jim Manning’s short career as a Richland County councilman. In fact, on the day after the 2008 election, I saw Manning’s election as the biggest disappointment of the night. At the time, I was mostly upset that Manning had replaced an excellent incumbent, despite offering no good reasons as to why he would do a better job.It was a monument to party line voting over merit, the starkest that I saw in the 2008 election.
Mr. Manning is a nice, friendly guy, and I’ve only had pleasant interactions with him. But little that he has done since Election Night has caused me to feel better about his election.
Friday, Warren Bolton had a good column on the subject, inspired most immediately by a shocking action by Richland County Council in June:
IT SHOULDN’T come as a shock that Richland County Councilman Jim Manning insisted on raising property taxes in Richland 2 to the maximum allowed under state law against the school board’s wishes.
It’s the kind of thing for which he’s become known. While Mr. Manning characterizes himself as one who’s willing to make bold proposals and stand by them, at times his efforts are misguided, lack sound judgment and trample the tenets of good stewardship and sound policy making…
Jim Manning
Mr. Manning utterly failed to justify his action. It was apparently based in vague notions that more should be spent on education (without regard to whether there is any sort of plan for spending it). Some of you — Doug, for instance — probably think I would do just what the councilman did. I wouldn’t. Oh, I might fight for the district’s request, if it seemed justified within the context in which it was presented. But I would never dream of saying, “Oh, here’s some more money you didn’t ask for.”
Of course, the really shocking thing here is that the council went along with him on it. We wouldn’t be talking about this at all if he had not. I don’t know all the dynamics of that; I haven’t spoken with the other council members and for some reason I don’t see the minutes of that meeting on the county website. Here are the minutes of the previous meeting, at which the matter was apparently discussed. They are a bit hard to follow. There were procedural votes that split along party lines, but in the end the vote was unanimous. Under such circumstances, I would have to have been there and heard what was said to fully understand the way it unfolded. But as Warren points out, with Mr. Manning, we have a pattern emerging:
This isn’t the first time Mr. Manning has left people scratching their heads.
He led a misguided effort to weaken the county’s smoking ban by allowing any establishment to operate “a portion of its workplace” as a “designated smoking area” if it is separate from the nonsmoking area and has its own outside entrance and a separate heating and air system; that would have required some employees to work in smoking areas. While the change was sold as an attempt to address concerns of a single bingo operator along Decker Boulevard in Mr. Manning’s district, it would have opened the door to all businesses, including bars and restaurants. The council wisely nixed the measure.
Prior to Mr. Manning taking office, County Council — worried about clutter, among other things — had banned new billboards in unincorporated areas. It later reaffirmed that stance by rebuffing attempts to expand the use of electronic billboards, which many worried would distract drivers. Once Mr. Manning joined the council, he teamed with Councilwoman Gwendolyn Kennedy to revive the electronic billboard issue and turn what once was a slim majority against them into a decided majority in favor….
Warren also cited Mr. Manning’s odd feud with County Administrator Milton Pope. He forgot one memorable incident, though — one I wrote about here, when he tried to get a high-stakes bingo on Decker Boulevard, before backing down in the face of strong community opposition (including from his own pastor).
Warren speculated that thanks to what the Council has done at Mr. Manning’s behest, “Even though it’s not at fault, Richland 2 could feel some backlash from the business community.” Oh, I think you can count on it. Since the Legislature in its “wisdom” relieved homeowners entirely from supporting school with their property taxes, the burden of supporting this whimsy falls heavily on business. And “business” in this case includes owners of rental property — which generally means rents going up for those who can’t afford to own a home.
According to Warren, Mr. Manning has a response when people criticize him, because he’s used to it:
“People have been reacting to me like that since I was in kindergarten,” he said.
I recently asked him what he meant by that.
“Kindergarten is the first time that I remember that I had to interact with an organized institution,” he said. “Ever since I’ve had to interact with organized institutions I have not toed the line.”
Set aside that he has been elected to represent real people in an organized institution. As Warren points out in the headline, this isn’t kindergarten. And nobody legitimately expects an elected official to “toe the line.” He’s there to use his best judgment in representing the people who elected him.
The key word there is “judgment.”
Warren’s column accompanied an editorial in which The State said:
Mr. Manning acknowledges that he didn’t scour the district’s budget and find holes that needed to be plugged or valuable programs that needed funding. He said district officials didn’t ask him to intervene. He also said he doesn’t care what the money is spent on; he just wants the district to have the money and is sure it will find something worthwhile to spend it on.
Richland 2 officials said they intend to spend the money forced upon them wisely, but they have gone to great pains to make it clear that they didn’t want the increased budget. Over the years, officials in the largest and fastest growing Midlands district have proven responsible and adept at handling their budget — and at asking for what’s needed to operate schools.
With the economy in the state it’s in and only businesses and automobiles being charged school operating taxes, District 2’s elected board — not unlike other conscientious elected officials — understands that keeping businesses open and people employed is crucial. So the board sought to balance the district’s needs with those of taxpaying constituents. But County Council, in its flawed wisdom and for no defensible or even clearly articulable reason, overruled the district.
Thought y’all might be interested in this huge (about as tall as I am) poster over at GOP HQ. Chad Connelly and Matt Moore showed it to me when I arrived for the interview this morning.
They didn’t know where it came from — they found it when they moved in to the HQ — but they assume from the available clues in the photo that it’s from 1960. Note (if you can; this being too big to put on a scanner, I just shot a picture of it with my iPhone — and it was pretty grainy to start with):
The prophetic declaration, “DIXIE IS NO LONGER IN THE BAG” — which was not yet true from a GOP perspective.
What you can’t see around the slogan “ALL FOR NIXON” is the names of Old South states (they were hard to see in the original, too).
At least one, and probably other, leaflets on the ground say “Kennedy!”
I was amused at the van near the State House steps that said “Wilson” on the back. Seems like Joe’s always been in politics, doesn’t it?
The flags, which are located far below the dome, and of course do not include the Confederate flag. This is before the General Assembly and Fritz Hollings put the Dixie flag up to mark the Civil War centennial. Are there also flags atop the dome, or were there no flags there then? I don’t know.
The men wearing hats. After JFK won South Carolina and the presidency, he put a stop to that style. Or so they say.
The license plate on the hearse, which provides proof that Paul was dead before we’d even heard of the Beatles.
OK, I was kidding on that last one. Y’all have fun with the picture, too.
Michele Bachmann spent plenty of time Monday letting everyone know that she was born in Waterloo, Iowa, a small industrial town she credits with instilling within her many of her conservative ideals.
But in one interview surrounding her formal campaign rollout, the Tea Party favorite seems to have gotten a little confused about some of the finer points of the Hawkeye State’s history.
Speaking to Fox News, Bachmann said that she had the same spirit as Waterloo’s own John Wayne. One can only assume that she was referring to the movie star, who was born in Winterset, Iowa, roughly a three-hour drive from Waterloo. The problem, however, is that Waterloo appears to have much closer ties to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the “killer clown” who had his first criminal conviction there.
OK, I was kidding about that. I have only Denis Leary to go by on the Duke being frozen. But I do have a question — didn’t she launch her campaign a couple of weeks ago? She announced it at the debate…
I spoke with Chad over at the party HQ this morning. Since this was my first sit-down with him, I wanted to cover the bases — ask him to talk a bit about his background, etc. So we did.
But the hot topic — and if you can’t wait to get to it, it starts at 4:15 on the clip — was Gov. Nikki Haley’s threatened veto of funding for the SC GOP presidential primary in January.
Some highlights of that discussion:
He said there will be a presidential primary here, “no matter what.”
He said presidential primaries are so important that next time the Democrats have one, he’d be the first to support their bid for similar funding.
Total cost is a million dollars. Or maybe 1.5 million.
He expects to speak with the governor about it, and try to impress upon her the importance of the funding, this week. He’ll also be talking with legislative leaders.
Can General Assembly override a veto? “Yes,” he said.
Enjoy the show. This one is actually a bit shorter than most, which I hope you will appreciate. I asked about as many question as usual, but Mr. Connelly is a very focused speaker, which I guess adds up since that is his profession. It’s not that his answers were so short. It’s just that he said what he had to say to answer me, and stopped. Not many people do that.
I remember speaking to Kelly Payne when I was standing with Sen. John Courson at the Huntsman event the other day, but I had forgotten she was holding a camera at the time, until she tagged me on this photo on Facebook.
No, I don’t know what we were laughing at at the time. But I like the picture. See how jolly we were. People almost never catch me like this in pictures. I don’t let them, if I can help it.
Remember how I complained about how hot it was at this event. Well, as you can see, I did everything I could in terms of dressing for the weather. There are, I realize, some people who would suggest taking of one’s coat, but what is one to say about such jacobins?
Having noted that Dick Harpootlian had singled him out for abuse, I thought I’d check out one of Jon Huntsman’s appearances in Columbia today. (Here’s what he said at an earlier appearance.) I thought, “I hear the Republicans have this nice new building, and that would be better than going to a barbecue.” I had reckoned without the event being outside the building. In case you wondered, a seersucker suit does not keep you cool standing in the sun on a day like today. The things I put up with for y’all…
This was my first actual official 2012 presidential event. I’m hoping they don’t have any more until October. Or have them inside. Or in England.
Anyway, I’m uploading some video to YouTube now, which may or may not be ready by the time I finish typing this.
When it’s up, you will see the following people standing up with Huntsman and his wife and (some of their) kids: Mike Campbell, John Courson, and the inimitable Henry McMaster. Henry played master of ceremonies, as he did so often four years ago for John McCain. That got me to thinking about something. I asked Henry, after the Huntsman speech, how many of the presidential candidates he had personally backed had won their SC primaries. I said I couldn’t remember him NOT having backed the eventual winner. He thought for moment, standing there sweltering, and said he wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t to my saying that. So I just did.
This provides an interesting perspective. Jon Huntsman may seem to some like a bit of an outlier in the GOP — at least at the moment. But here we had him with the GOP establishment in SC, just about anyway you slice it. A Campbell. Two of South Carolina’s most ardent Reaganites, McMaster and Courson. He’s got Richard Quinn in his corner, too.
Now you may say that those guys are the OLD establishment, that not it’s about the Nikki Haleys (who swamped Henry and every other establishment type back in the Year of the Tea Party) and the Mark Sanfords. Well, Huntsman has Joel Sawyer running his campaign. And I thought I saw Rob Godfrey posing for a picture with the candidate, but I could have been mistaken.
And indeed, many of the folks there were just there out of curiosity, or to be polite because they were invited — such as Eric Davis, who as chair of the Richland County GOP was sort of there ex-officio. Among those I spotted, but did not get around to asking why they were there, were Frank Barron, Katrina Shealy, Kelly Payne, Mike Green, Adam Piper, Andrew Williams and our own sometime commenter Walter Durst. You may see others on the video. I did not look at it closely because I was in a hurry to upload it. It’s raw, and unedited. Enjoy.
In an in-depth interview, the former Governor of South Carolina opens up about the scandal that caused him to leave office & more.
